Hong Kong’s defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily no longer pursued balanced reporting after the Beijing-imposed national security law came into force, a former editorial writer has said in a landmark trial of media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
The way Apple Daily approached its news reports and the commentary section shifted after its founder Lai saw a “change in the global situation,” ex-editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee told three High Court judges as he began testifying against his former boss on Monday.
Monday marked day 37 of Lai’s 80-day trial for charges under the sweeping security legislation and the colonial-era sedition law. The 76-year-old could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted, after pleading not guilty to two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the security law and one count of conspiring to publish “seditious” materials.
He was charged alongside three subsidiaries of Apple Daily – Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited and AD Internet Limited.
Yeung, who was also a defendant in the case, is the third former Apple Daily employee to testify against Lai. According to his testimony on Monday, he was born and educated in mainland China and moved to Hong Kong in 1993. He joined Apple Daily in 1998 as a senior reporter for the China desk and later climbed the ladder to become the newspaper’s lead editorial writer.
Yeung was responsible for writing editorials and managing a “forum page” of the newspaper, which would be printed in the main section of the publication. He was also partly responsible for choosing which printed articles went online, although most digital content was decided by editors from other news desks.
Lai’s political stance
Yeung told the court on Monday that the forum page he managed would not publish views that “went against” the opinions Lai expressed in his own column, which was printed in a separate section.
Lai became “more radical” after then-US vice-president Mike Pence gave a speech about US-China relations at the Hudson Institute in October 2018, Yeung said. Pence’s speech reflected a change in US policy towards China, the editorial writer said, with the US wanting to “kick China when she’s down” by launching more than just a trade war.
When asked how Lai’s political stance had become more radical, the editorial writer said his former boss was a “successful businessman” who understood the market and consumer needs. He was able to “grasp” the changes in the international landscape and wanted to make changes to Apple Daily’s news reporting and commentary, Yeung said.
The prosecutor asked Yeung to describe the angle of Apple Daily’s publication from February 2019 to the end of that year when the city was rocked by large-scale protests. Yeung said the newspaper had “encouraged resistance,” and hoped that the government would retract the extradition bill.
“During the anti-extradition movement… [Apple Daily’s] news reporting became more radical. When the national security law came out, it was no longer about pursuing balanced reporting,” Yeung said in Cantonese.
Not enough writers
The prosecution on Monday focused on communications between Yeung and Lai, and Yeung’s conversations with then-associate publisher Chan Pui-man and other editorial writers.
According to Yeung, he told Chan about the issue of not having enough writers for the forum page at a lunchbox meeting in mid-July 2020, weeks after the national security law came into force.
Lai instructed him to turn to overseas writers, whom Yeung said could provide “sharper” criticism of the government because they were “less worried” about the effects of the Beijing-imposed legislation.
Cheung Kim-hung, who was the paper’s publisher at the time, also tried to find writers for Yeung’s section, the editorial writer said.
Yeung, Chan and Cheung are among six former Apple Daily executives who pleaded guilty to taking part in a conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.
Yeung described commentator Eric Poon, better known by his penname Sang Pu, as being inclined to support Hong Kong independence. Many of his articles were not suitable for publication in the newspaper and Apple Daily later stopped publishing his op-eds, Yeung said.
At a dinner Yeung attended with Lai in May 2020, they discussed the English-language version of Apple Daily, which the media tycoon believed could help people in the US to understand Hong Kong’s situation better and in turn prompt the US government to “take actions.”
When asked what kind of action Lai wanted the US to take, Yeung said there was discussion about possible sanctions to pressurise Hong Kong officials into delaying the promulgation of the national security law.
“When Lai called for international sanctions, I supported [his views] in the forum page,” he said.
Concerns about arrest
Yeung revealed that at a dinner meeting at Lai’s residence, attendees had raised concerns about his risk of being arrested. But the media mogul said he was not afraid, saying his arrest would underline the crackdown on human rights and press freedom by Beijing and Hong Kong authorities.
“The US, the UK and Europe would not sit there and do nothing… only then would sanction measures be imposed… it would help improve the human rights situation in Hong Kong,” Yeung said citing Lai.
Yeung will continue his testimony on Tuesday.
Lai has been detained since December 2020, and is currently serving a five-year, nine-month sentence for fraud in a maximum security institution. The self-made millionaire’s media outlet, which was forced to close in June 2021 after senior staff were arrested, faces the same charges. Apple Daily’s newsroom was raided twice, and its assets were frozen.
When Lai’s trial began on December 18, 2023, he had already spent more than 1,000 days in custody. Three judges – handpicked by Hong Kong’s chief executive to hear national security cases – are presiding over Lai’s trial in the place of a jury, a departure from the city’s common law traditions.
Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure. The move gave police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds of arrests amid new legal precedents, while dozens of civil society groups disappeared. The authorities say it restored stability and peace to the city, rejecting criticism from trade partners, the UN and NGOs.
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